But the case was abandoned yesterday after lawyers argued he was too ill to stand trial due to bowel cancer which has spread to his lungs.

MacNeil’s son Roddy, 54, was dubbed Father Flash after fathering a child with his married cousin and bedding another lover half his age.

The scandal-hit priest has returned to South Uist to support his ill dad.

In May, doctors told MacNeil snr he had six months to live.

And on Friday, three days into the trial, he collapsed and was rushed to Glasgow Royal Infirmary.

Dad-of-three MacNeil, from the Western Isles, had denied sexually abusing 13 girls from 1971 to 2011.

He also denied raping a girl aged 12 or 13 in the 1970s and another girl aged 14 or 15 in the 1990s.

Judge Johanna Johnston QC agreed to desert the trial “pro loco et tempore” – which means the case is stopped but can be brought again if the accused recovers.

Before the trial was abandoned, two women gave evidence that MacNeil had raped them when they were children. Another woman gave evidence of being sexually abused.

But yesterday, defence QC Derek Ogg told the jury that a consultant who treated MacNeil in hospital said he was unfit to attend trial.

Allowing him to walk free yesterday, the judge said: “For all we know the case may be brought back again, but that will be for others to decide.”

A Crown Office spokesman later confirmed: “After full and careful consideration of the facts and circumstances of the case, including expert medical opinion relating to the health of the accused, the Crown made a motion to discontinue proceedings for the time being and this was granted by the court.

“It remains open to the Crown to re-raise the prosecution in the future.”

The Record told in 2005 how MacNeil’s son Roddy was suspended from the priesthood after claims of an “inappropriate relationship”.

He was ordered by his bishop to quit his Western Isles parish, Our Lady of the Sea, on Barra.

His flock were not told about the scandal.

Instead, they were told that their popular priest, renowned for his sharp dressing and suave manner, had “taken time out to reflect on the future of his priestly vocation”.

It later emerged that the woman MacNeil was involved with was his first cousin Hilda Robertson. She fell pregnant in September 2005. The baby is believed to be MacNeil’s.

He had conducted the ceremony when Hilda married James Robertson in 1984 – but the priest seduced her after she turned to him for comfort when her brother was dying. Hilda fell in love with MacNeil and eventually left her husband to live with the priest on Barra.

But MacNeil, 46, went missing when rumours of the relationship began to circulate on the island.

Hilda suspected MacNeil was cheating on her – and it later emerged that he had also been dating 22-year-old student Jennifer Gilbert.